Answers to prayer and progress

  

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I was worried about getting time off for the Hope for Wholeness Conference next month. We are required to ask two weeks ahead of time for days off, but since I was putting money down, I didn't want to chance it, so I asked at the end of March by email. Never got a reply. Emailed about 3 weeks ago to remind the guy and asked if I needed to let him know closer the time. Still no reply. Emailed him this week on Tuesday and specifically asked him to verify that I had the days off. No reply. So yesterday, I called him. He pulled his calendar out and said he had me off for June 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. I wanted to say "Let me introduce you to a cool feature on your email called "reply", but I didn't. I was just thankful I got them off.

  This should be a lesson to me. I have been fretting and worrying about it for a few weeks, even though I have been praying about it. If I'd have called him sooner, it would most likely have cut that worrying and fretting out.

  I am really looking forward to the conference. My best friend and I will be sharing a room, and we don't get to see each other very often, about once a year. The conference goes from Thursday, June 5 thru Sunday morning June 8. I am off Sundays and Mondays, so I asked for an extra day off, Tuesday, and my friend is coming back with me on Sunday and staying til Tuesday. Looking forward to that also.

  Most days, I feel like I have so far to go spiritually. I feel I don't pray well enough, read my Bible right, am too short tempered, and other things. I do need to mature spiritually, but I don't want to lose sight of how much God has helped me and how far He has brought me. I am still attracted to guys and maybe always will be. I still have a hard time not looking at nice looking guys, especially if they are shirtless, but it has been eight months since I have hooked up, and I rarely have temptations to do so. And when they do come, it isn't very intense. That could change, but I will be thankful for the way things are going right now.

  And part of me wonders whose ideal I am trying to live up to anyway. I want to live the way God wants, and I want my life to please Him, but is it God's ideal of the progress I need to be making, of how my prayer and Bible reading time should be, or is it mine? If I think about it, it does seem I have my own ideas of how I should be doing things, of the progress I should be making, and maybe I am expecting more out of myself at this point in my walk with God than He is expecting. Who knows. I am trying not to beat myself up over it. As long as I am not giving into sin, and as long as I am going forward in my walk, that is better than where I was a year ago.

  There is still a lot of uncertainty. I need my own place, but wonder if I can ever afford it on my current wages. I worry about affording a new car when mine gives out, and a lot of stuff like that. But God has been helping me in the areas of sexual temptation, so I must believe He can and will help in these other areas also.